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The Effects of Learning
The Effects of Learning
The Effects of Learning
This study aims to discuss the correlations among learning styles, meaningful learning,
and learning achievement. Directed at the rather difficult to comprehend human blood
circulation unit in the biology materials for junior high school students, a Mobile
Meaningful Blood Circulation Learning System, called MMBCLS gamification learning,
was developed. In the study, the instructional design is based on meaningful learning
and follows the principles of digital game-based learning models to design after-class
multimedia materials, which allow learners to enjoy learning. With a quasi-experimental
design, Kolb’s learning styles scale and meaningful learning scale were utilized as
research instruments. Taking a G8 class as the subject, 46 valid questionnaires were
returned. The research findings show divergences in mobile game-based learning styles:
students with convergent styles highly regarded the well-designed curriculum in
meaningful learning; student gender presented no significant difference in curriculum
design and learning achievement in meaningful learning; students with different
learning styles revealed remarkable differences in learning achievement; and students
in the experimental group apparently had a higher learning achievement than the
students in the control group, with notable differences. The research outcomes could be
cited by teachers for designing material and provide educators with a reference for the
mobile as meaningful media material design..
INTRODUCTION
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blood flow, and that arteries and veins can be differentiated by size and thickness.
With regards to teaching media, many teachers do not use interesting digital
materials; conversely, digital games do not conform to their demands (Prensky
2001; 2003).
Consequently, instructional activities are designed through meaningful learning
theory and combined with game-based learning characteristics in this study. Based
on domestic and foreign research results on human blood circulation, the design
principles for a game-based learning model and the activity design for meaningful
learning are applied to understanding the following:
1. The use of games as a learning approach to establish the gamification
mobile learning system and enhance the learning achievement.
2. Difference in learning outcomes with distinct instructional strategies.
3. Differences in unit level learning outcomes with distinct instructional
strategies.
4. How to correlate analyses of meaningful learning and learning outcomes.
5. Effects of learning styles on learning achievement.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Game-based learning
Some research has indicated that students consider game-based learning easier
than other learning approaches (DeVries & Edwards 1972). Prensky (2001; 2003)
pointed out that the competitive/cooperative spirit, playfulness, achievements and
the continued introduction of challenges into a game, in which rewards can be
acquired, increases the amount of knowledge gained by students. Games could also
provide continual practice, after which learners could acquire higher accuracy and
improve their memory (Driskell , Willis & Cooper 1992). Dempsey, Lucassen,
Haynes, and Casey (1996) pointed out several functions of games, such as teaching,
entertaining, assisting in exploring new skills, promoting self-dignity, practicing
skills, and changing attitudes, revealing that the application of games to education
offered great value. Bork and King (1998) argued that video games allowed real-
time brainstorming and stimulated inspiration. Considering the above viewpoints, it
is concluded that the application of games to learning could induce a
competitive/cooperative spirit, enhance memory, stimulate inspiration, and
promote motivation among learners.
Learning styles
Learning styles refers to the way learners approach the learning process. During
the interaction between the learning situation and the learning process, students
generate special preferences to respond to external and internal environmental
stimuli. In the Experiential Learning Theory, Kolb (1976) regarded learning
activities as a continuous process, which was divided into four stages: concrete
experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualization (AC), and
active experience (AE). Such four stages formed a continuously repeated learning
cycle, Figure 1.
These four learning styles were further composed to include: (1) an
accommodator, who tended to deal in affairs with practical experiences and active
verification; (2) a diverger, who presented stronger imagination and comprehension
and was good at observing conditions from various aspects to organize a complete
symbolic meaning; (3) a converger, who solved problems and made decisions, as
well as practically applying theories and ideas; and (4) an assimilator, who
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Table 1. Design of meaningful learning activities and model of game-based learning
Model Meaningful Learning objective Level Game characteristics AS
learning
Output Personalized 10. Completely understanding and Assessment Outcomes and Feedback
learning blood circulatory systems A
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2. Goals or Objectives: in the limited time, the players start from the right
ventricle and pass to the left lung, left atrium, spleen, liver, right ventricle,
right lung, and left atrium for a one-time human blood circulation.
3. Outcomes and Feedback: all questions asked by NPCs (Non-Player
Characters) should be answered in the game process in order to pass
through succeeding levels.
4. Conflict, Competition, Challenge and Opposition: different bacterial attacks
are encountered along the various game routes and many wounds need to be
healed, dictating that players use both hands and brains.
5. Representation and Story: players can play three roles (red blood cells,
white blood cells, platelets) to deepen their sense of identity.
6. Curiosity: four organs – heart, liver, spleen and lung – are levels through
players pass, so that they can view the internal organs; further, the games
are animated to induce player curiosity.
7. Control: players can control their roles through interaction with mobile
devices. Skills are required for coping with bacteria, big monsters and little
monsters, and the players need rich blood circulation knowledge in order to
pass the levels.
B. Process
I. System Feedback
1. The little map on the top left of the screen allows players to be aware of the
current locations, so as to learn the correlations among blood circulation
systems.
2. There are task prompts for the four organs (heart, liver, spleen and lung)
e.g., requiring oxygen when starting from the left lung, or changing to red
blood cells to absorb carbon dioxide.
3. NPCs ask questions in the blood cell/vessel zone, heart zone, liver zone,
spleen zone, and lung zone. For example, players can be asked what delivers
blood to the lungs, allowing the carbon dioxide in the blood to be changed
into oxygen, and are requested to select a correct answer from (A) left
ventricle, (B) right ventricle and (C) right atrium.
II. User Judgment
Players go through the organs and think of the functions that would most interest
them when reading the relevant knowledge in textbooks, rather than looking at
static pictures.
III. User Behavior
The relevant textbook lesson would be effectively connected to the lesson after the
game, by which time students will have become acquainted with the human blood
circulatory system and their learning motivation will have been enhanced.
C. Output
With game characteristics and auditory and visual stimulation, players are
integrated into situations by constantly performing tasks, solving problems and
answering questions; by seriously treating the knowledge delivered in the game
process; and by adjusting their opinions about such issues; all of which further
enhances their learning motivation.
System function design
The game interface and functions are completely introduced and demonstrated
in this section. The players can log onto the system from the menu in Figure 3(a) and
enter the unit practice from the menu in Figure 3(b). The main menu and role
selection are shown in Figure 3(b), through which the players can enter the learning
units of the cardiovascular, liver, spleen and lung circulatory systems.
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The players start as white blood cells from the right atrium and go through the
left lung, left atrium, spleen, liver, right atrium, right lung and left atrium. The blood
circulatory system contains pulmonary circulation, systemic circulation, and back to
pulmonary circulation. In addition to collecting oxygen and carbon dioxide on the
way, oxygen and carbon dioxide are also released at specific locations. Various
bacteria attacks are encountered and wounds need to be healed on the way. Before
leaving each organ, NPCs’ questions need to be correctly answered. The final
destination is arrived at when the powerful Devil King is defeated. Figure 4(a)~(d)
shows pictures of the players in the four organ games.
Ten unit questions are asked after completing the learning lesson of each level,
and the system automatically records the learning process. Consequently, a player’s
learning is assessed as it corresponds to the four major human blood circulation
assessment systems: cardiovascular, liver, spleen and lung, Figure 5(a)~(d).
Instrument
Gamification system comprehension and learning achievement pretest
Before the instructional experiment, the gamification system content
comprehension test was preceded by a pretest. The learning achievement test aimed
to evaluate the participants’ learning achievement in the blood circulation course
after the experiment. The content refers to the lessons taught about blood
Figure 4. Four major organs in the human blood circulation systems: heart, liver, spleen and lung
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(c) Assessment 3. Lung circulation system (d) Assessment 4. Spleen circulation system
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cooperative and personalized. In regard to validity, a factor analysis was used for
exploring the construct validity, confirming the valid factors, deleting potential
indicators not conforming to the research, and reinforcing the construct validity of
the scale. The α reliability presents 0.87, 0.83, 0.88, 0.82 and 0.81, and the α
coefficient of the overall scale appears as 0.84, showing the favorable reliability of
this scale.
SYSTEM ASSESSMENT
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Random Assigned
Pre-test and pre-questionnaire for basic knowledge about the blood circulation lesson
2nd week
40 Min
Condition 1 Condition 2
--------------------------- --------------------------- 3rd~8th week
Using gamification Using traditional 240 Min
learning content with teaching approach to
meaningful learning learn in the classroom
design without paper and
learning styles pencil
9th week
Post-test and Questionnaire 40 Min
10th week
Interview and follow up 40 Min
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To achieve this accuracy, i.e., a valid scale, one reliable enough to measure all of
the questionnaires is required. In other words, a scale achieves effectiveness when it
is able to achieve the measuring objective. Content validity is utilized in this study
for evaluating the validity. In this case, the scale was revised based on the
suggestions derived from three experts, and the pretest results. The scale, therefore,
reveals suitable content validity.
RESULT
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Table 5. Game level learning outcome analysis between experimental and control group
Experimental group (grade) Control group (grade)
Unit level Order Order
Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest
Mean 75 85 4 78 76 3
Cardiovascular
zone SD 11 9 10 11
Mean 79 92 1 73 75 4
Liver zone
SD 12 11 11 10
Mean 80 87 3 79 80 1
Lung zone
SD 10 10 12 11
Mean 78 89 2 74 77 2
Spleen zone
SD 11 8 9 10
Active 1
Authentic .372* 1
Constructive .291 .794** 1
Cooperative .411* .380* .520** 1
Personalized .571* .420* .610** .510** 1
LA .584** .474** .763** .700** .780** 1
LA (Learning Achievements)
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conceptualization (AC), the largest. Overall, the variance of the four learning
approaches is not large, revealing the small differences among the tested students
and the high homogeneity of learning styles of the sampled students. In terms of the
distribution of the participants’ learning styles, 65% are divergers, 11%
assimilators, 6% convergers, and 18% accommodators. In this case, the order of
population percentage shows diverger, accommodator, assimilator and converger,
Table 7. Based on One-way Analysis of Variance, Table 8 shows that a different
learning style could notably affect the awareness of a learning achievement,
F=5.946, p=.000<.001, reaching a significance of .05, with post comparisons,
P1(Diverger) > P2(Assimilator), P3(Converger), P4(Accommodator).
Divergent and accommodation learning styles cover 65% of the tested samples.
According to Kolb’s Learning Styles Theory, divergent learners prefer concrete
experience and reflective observation, while accommodation learners prefer
concrete experience and active experience. From the two dimensions in learning
styles, both divergers and accommodators tend towards concrete experience in
receiving information and prefer receiving it through the senses. According to
Piaget’s cognitive-development stages, G8 students are at the concrete operational
stage, in which practical operation experiences replace abstract conceptualization
thinking in the learning. The research results conform to the cognitive development
learning theory. G8 students present rich creativity and imagination. The research
results reveal that 65% of the participants with divergent learning styles have the
characteristics which conform to the developmental characteristics of children at
this stage. The research results further verify the favorable reliability and validity of
Kolbs’ Learning Styles Scale.
Conclusion
Kolb’s four learning styles are classified according to the learner’s learning
experiences; divergers prefer concrete experience and reflective observation;
assimilators prefer reflective observation and abstract conceptualization;
convergers prefer abstract conceptualization and active experience; and
accommodators prefer concrete and active experience. Each type of learner presents
a learning preference. Therefore, a meaningful mobile learning system was
proposed in this study, through quasi-experimental design, to understand what
assistance the mobile meaningful learning system offers to a student’s learning
P2=(Assimilator) 84 9.4 46
P3=(Converger) 81 8.3 46
P4=(Accommodator) 85 7.2 46
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outcome (Table 2). The experiment also proves the assistance of such a system in
teaching the blood circulation system lesson, and the significant differences in
distinct learning strategies. What is more, the mobile meaningful learning system is
utilized for understanding the units and promoting the learning outcomes (Table 4).
This study also reveals the positive correlations between meaningful learning and
learning outcomes.
The research results disclose no remarkable difference between learning styles
and meaningful learning, showing various factors in meaningful learning, but not
including learners’ learning preference; meaningful learning with distinct learning
styles does not differ and they have no effect upon each other. Research in the area
of curriculum design, aiming at learning styles and meaningful learning was not
done. The results of this study, therefore, could be a point of departure for future
research.
1. Differences of student learning outcomes in the blood circulation lesson
The learning assessment can be automatically collected through the system, thus,
allowing for an analysis of a student’s learning outcomes at various unit levels of
circulation in the cardiovascular zone, circulation in liver zone, circulation in lung
zone, and circulation in spleen zone. It is worth noticing that the research subjects in
this study, both in the experimental and control group, present the spleen zone in
the second order of the unit learning outcomes, while the rest appear in a different
order. It also shows different media performance on the learning contents designed
with MMBCLS: rich media design correlates with better learning outcomes. The
experimental group shows the unit level result of the liver zone (92)>, spleen zone
(89)>, lung zone (87)>, and cardiovascular zone (85), where the design contents in
the liver zone include more challenges and game characteristics. As a result, it would
appear that there is a correlation between the outcome of game-based learning and
the number and function of game characteristics invested into the game.
2. Correlations between meaningful content design and learning outcome
The five learning dimensions for meaningful learning show positive correlations
with learning outcomes, with personalized having the highest correlation of 0.780**,
followed by constructive with 0.763** (Table 6). It shows that meaningful content
design should put more emphasis on students’ levels and that more adaptive
learning designs should be required for the students with distinct levels, so as to
acquire more learning satisfaction. Furthermore, a constructive 0.763** also
indicates that the student learning material design should correlate to students’
prior learning, so that new units are gradually integrated. By drawing from their
previous experiences, students could then reduce the amount of time consumed in
tangential explorations. It conforms to Vosniadou and Brewer’s comprehensive
model, which regarded students’ daily experiences as the initial model, turning to a
comprehensive model and further to a scientific model. In other words, knowledge
is the continuous acquisition of new mental correlations.
Research implications and suggestions
1. Understand students’ learning styles to develop distinct course activity
designs
Each student has an independent and distinct learning style, and the unique
composition of learning styles in any given class is different from that of any other.
In deference to individual learning styles and in order to avoid teachers’ treating all
students with a single methodology, negating the maximization of individual student
potential, teaching practitioners could organize students’ learning styles into files
for instructional reference.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is supported in part by the National Science Council of the Republic of
China under contract numbers NSC 104-2410-H-366 -003 - and NSC 104-2622-H-
366 -001 -CC3.
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